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Yuri possessed the will to move—but no longer the biological mechanics.
“They’re supposed to stop when you shoot the brain,” said Timur. “You hit the brain and they go down. That’s how it works . . .”
“For the last time,” said Liev, “it doesn’t matter why. What matters is, now you know.”
“I’ll do my part . . . until I can’t.”
“Because if we make it through into morning—then we can plan for the night.”
He spied a pale figure bolting from one tree to another, occasionally visible between the trunks and branches. It looked like a boy, but his eyes were old eyes—older than any human’s—glinting, jewel-like, yet dark, deep, and sinful.
Ahead, on a boulder in a clearing, he saw the same runic symbol he had spotted above the stone archway. The stone face was stained with blood that was black in places and red in others: old and new. He reached out and touched the symbol, and immediately he heard, as though originating in his head, a sibilant, raspy voice enunciate three words: throat—guardian—hunger.
“Ghillie?” “It’s an old word,” said Daniil. “Gaelic—an ex-IRA sniper told me this. He said it means ‘black-haired lad’—except the lad in question is not a human boy. It’s a mountain spirit. An elemental force. It can be kind or cruel—makes no difference to them. Because they were never human.”
“Each elemental spirit is one thing and one thing only,” Daniil continued, undaunted. “A guardian. A destroyer. A life giver. I guess we know what this one is.”
“Not only is it unafraid—I expect it is glad. Glad to feed off of such expert killers, and to have them fully under its control.”
Liev sensed the presence near him before he saw its movement. A flash of steel—a knife blade—reached from behind him and slashed through his coat and vest, opening up the right side of his lower midsection. He never saw the Boy, only his hand, his long, thin fingers, wrapped around the knife handle. He tried to turn, to get a shot off, but as he did the wound opened, and his flesh burned, and blood spilled warmly over his waist and down into his pants. Pain exploded in his eyes, and Liev went down, first to his knees, then face forward onto the stone floor.
